Thinking in Times of Trouble: Philosophy in Nazi Germany

Abstract

In January 1919 in Munich, the Nazi movement began when Anton Drexler, a railroad toolmaker, founded the German Workers Party (Deutsche Arbeiter Partei, DAP). During this time, Munich, like the rest of Germany, was in economic, social, and political chaos due to Germany’s defeat in World War I and the subsequent November democratic revolution in 1918: famine, unemployment, and a power struggle between nationalists and communists plagued the country. The Treaty of Versailles on May 7, 1919, outraged the German right. However, the DAP had little influence until it recruited Adolf Hitler as its speaker in September 1919. This dynamic orator quickly attracted a following with his denunciations of Jews, Marxists, capitalists, and the November republic. In 1920 the DAP changed its name to the National Socialist German Worker Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), and in January 1921 Hitler assumed the chairmanship of the party.